A Russian general was killed by a car bomb on Friday, Russia's top criminal investigation agency said, in the second such attack on a senior Russian military officer in four months.
The Investigative Committee said Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy chief of the main operational department at the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car in Balashikha, just outside Moscow.
The committee's spokeswoman, Svetlana Petrenko, said the explosive device was filled with metal fragments. She said investigators were at the scene.
Russian media broadcast video of a vehicle burning in the courtyard of a palace. The committee did not name any possible suspects.
BREAKING:: A senior Russian military officer was just killed by a car bomb.
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) April 25, 2025
Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy chief of operations for Russia's military General Staff, was killed in the explosion in the town of Balashikha.
Maybe they should have thought before invading a sovereign... pic.twitter.com/nDyCkpJ0vr
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described Moskalik's killing as a "terrorist attack."
His killing comes shortly after the assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who died on December 17 when a bomb hidden in an electric scooter parked outside his palace exploded as he was leaving for his office. Russian authorities blamed Ukraine for Kirillov's killing, and Ukraine's security agency admitted it was behind that attack.
Kirillov was the head of Russia's Radiation, Biological and Chemical Defense Forces, the special forces tasked with protecting the military from the enemy's use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and ensuring operations in a contaminated environment. Kirillov's aide also died at the scene.
A rare video of a Russian Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff, Major General Yaroslav Moskalik, being not rare at all, but well done. pic.twitter.com/ZgRTRjDUwa
— Sergej Sumlenny, LL.M (@sumlenny) April 25, 2025
Friday's explosion came as U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, was expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a U.S.-brokered peace plan for Ukraine. The meeting is their fourth since February.